Animals Amidst Us: Crossing to the Unexplained
by Jet556
Summary: Anomalous... Bemusing... Wondrous! The creatures that go bang and give goose bumps in the dark! The Murphysboro Monster: Were those sightings incubus delirium, and what about those footprints the authorities found? Peking Man: The bony cadaver of a missing link and a hunt that begins with U.S. Marines in devastated China and aggravates atop the Empire State Building! This and more!
1. Two Meetings

**Welcome, everyone. I know this story isn't on the list on my profile but I thought a surprise would be nice. Enjoy and review.**

 **Two Meetings**

Sitting in front of his computer, Ken Finlayson adjusted his camera. He was really going to get this going. He doubted anyone would watch this, of all the people in Norrisville, only he would talk about something as common as rocks.

Taking a breath, Ken hit record. So it began.

"Aloha, I'm Ken Finlayson." Ken winced a bit. Why did he just say 'aloha?' "Welcome to 'Animals Amidst Us: Crossing to the Unexplained.' In this web series we will be covering in the next twelve weeks all things anomalous baffling: the Bermuda Triangle, snowmen and deep animals, UFO astronauts and missing links! Now, let us get started with two meetings. It is an asteroid-kissed dark in Murphysboro, Illinois, a baking June eve…" And thus Ken Finlayson started his web series.


	2. Animals Amidst Us

**Welcome back everyone. Enjoy and review.**

 **Animals Amidst Us**

Despite what Ken thought there were people who watched the first episode of his web series. One of them being Heidi herself. Thus being one of the people to have watched it, Heidi asked the simple question that was on everyone's mind.

"Why 'Animals Amidst Us?'" asked Heidi. "Why not 'Monster Among Us?'"

"That title has been used for a book, darling." Stated Ken. "Of course the similarity in titles was intentional. It is meant to be a reference for those aware of the book."

"When was it published?" asked Heidi.

"1975."

"Fiction?"

"Non-fiction."

"Well then, angel, I don't think anyone would have cared had you called it 'Monsters Among Us.'" Said Heidi, sitting next to Ken and giving him a kiss on the cheek. "It isn't like we are going to read a non-fiction book that old… Wait, how did you find out about it? You don't usually go looking for these kinds of books even though they are right up your alley."

"My dad owns… Owned? What do I use since he gave it to me?" Ken shrugged. "Well, whatever it is I'll need to explain the questions that I received from the last episode."

"Shouldn't you say 'question' since they were all the same question?" asked Heidi with a grin. "Why you chose the title you did."

"Yeah, well, you know in advance." Stated Ken.


	3. The Abominable Snowman

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 **The Abominable Snowman**

The third week had come and so for that one Ken's subject of his web series would be the Abominable Snowman. Sitting in his chair, his camera recording, Ken spoke.

"It was eventide. Yonder, the long sweep of crystal apexes aglowed damask. Even before the head porter gave the bidding, Tashi released his burdensome backpack and turned to gape with wonted admiration and acclaim. The "Himalayas", that is what the European said the sahib had called them." Just off screen, several of Ken's friends who had been to Tibet and had seen the yeti themselves waited and wondered when they would be the ones to do the talking. If Randy Cunningham knew Ken it would probably be an hour in before he was able to talk. Howard Weinerman had his doubts he would ever be allowed to talk. As for the others; Bucky Hensletter, Theresa Fowler and Niall Warburton; they were in complete shock that he had actually managed to do some research on this subject. For someone who had said that he knew nothing about the Yeti because it, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster had never interested him it seemed almost strange that Ken would cover this subject. It seemed almost the Ken knew this subject would be expected. The first week he had covered the Murphysboro Monster, the second week he had talked about how monsters were not always what we believed them to be but went on to state that there was much mystery in the world. Of course, Ken knew nothing about the wonderings. He just continued on. "'Toi ye!' was the only comment the head porter ever said to him. 'Climb!' And climb Tashi had, up the glaciers, down the moraines. He'd lost track of the days, but then the days didn't count. They were somewhere in the northeastern Sikkim, preparing to make camp in the snow at 17,000 feet, and although the travail was toilsome, Tashi was enjoying himself absolutely. This was why he had left home, to see the big Earth. Not that he did not love his abode, too. Home was good, chiefly when his father sent him out with the yaks to amble, free and companionless, even higher than they now were, below the barriers of the big cordillera. Tashi did not dream for long. The head porter snapped biddings that began the eve customs of pitching the sahib's marquee and making a wee blaze to infuse his tea. After perambulating all day, the sahib, clearly, took a constitutional, and Tashi beamed to himself as he went about his travail. He had never met a sahib before, and he had to conjecture if they were all so abnormal. This one, from a clime denominated England, was a major in something denominated the Indian Army Medical Corps. The tidings around the bivouac was that he was going to compile an anthology about Tashi's cordillera. Tashi knew what anthologies were. He had seen one, an atypical article, in a abbey, and he was exceeding affected with the sahib. But he was less affected a few instants later. The sahib came bolting back to the bivouac—" Ken was taking so long! When were they going to be able to speak? "No one had pronounced they couldn't follow the sahib, and they all did. Then, after a wee icefall, they saw what had animated him so much: evanescing into the distance down the border of a glacier, a line of big humanlike spoor was embossed in the snow. Tashi quaked, and not from the cold. Up in the big places—"

While Ken continued to talk, the people he had invited over started playing a game of cards. They were playing go-fish... Because Niall only knew go-fish…

"Please tell me he is not quoting that book word for word." Groaned Randy quietly.

"If he is, I say we knock him out." Suggested Howard.

"Howard, we aren't going to do that." Said Theresa. "Besides he's—"

"He is nothing." Stated Howard.

"Niall, go get the book please." Said Theresa. Niall put his cards down on the table, a footstool really, and walked over to the bookshelf. As Niall looked for the book, Howard attempted to look at Niall's cards until Theresa put a hand on top of them. "Really?"

"Just look the other way, Fowler."

"I will not."

Niall then returned with the book. Opening to the third chapter, he scanned the chapter and gave an answer. "I-It looks like he is quoting some of them directly but other times he is giving similar statements."

"And it will take him how long to finish the Tashi story?" asked Randy.

"He is only half-way through the second page. It ends at the start of the third page." Replied Niall.

"Then what?" asked Theresa.

"Uh, something about the 1880's." stated Niall.

"This is taking forever." Groaned Howard.

"I'm not complaining." Commented Niall. "Ken's choice of rewording makes it sound like poetry."

"What a way to kiss-up to your mom's half-brother." Remarked Howard.

"I'm not kissing-up." Defended Niall. "Ken's choice of words makes what could have been an otherwise boring web series into something so artistic you could watch it without caring what the subject is."

"I think both of your opinions are an academic matter." Commented Randy.

What was said off-screen went unheard by Ken and those who would watch this. Ken just continued on.

"The twelvemonth was 1889, and if to a seventeen-year-old carrier the anomalous spoor had an apparent clarification, to Major W. A. Waddell, doctor of law, boy of the Linnaean Society, they were far more baffling. When Waddell returned to advancement and wrote…" It continued on that way until Ken was ready to let his guests speak.


	4. Following the American Bigfoot

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 **Following the American Bigfoot**

The fourth week came and so did the next episode of Ken's web series. He had done the Yeti in the previous episode. Now he asked a question at the beginning of this one.

"Has America its own edition of the Abominable Snowman?" It was the moment he asked that question, that everyone knew the subject. "Inquire any of the thirteen adolescent children who were available during individual darks in Oregon, and you'll get thirteen clamorous bawls of 'Yes!' Divers scientist, on the other hand, flatly say 'No.' Others are but acutely cynical. A few are at least willing to assess the conception. But the assembly of adolescents in Oregon think they know for assured. They beheld it. They chased it. One opines he shot it twice with a twelve-breadth shotgun. Three opine it chased them! The track record of the baffling animal is far more complete on the American continent than in Asia. Accounts of the Sasquatch, or Oh-mah'ah, or Omah, or Omno, have been part of American Indian folklore for centuries. And ever since 1811, when an American adventurer first announced having found Brobdingnagian, human-like spoor, the animal now most customarily denominated Bigfoot has been leaving hundreds of spoor, infrequent bumpy 'berths' of green or arms, an abhorrent miasma and frightened burghers in its wake. In the nineteenth century, broadsheet chronicles of 'Wild Hairy Men' turned up from Arkansas to California, where Gold Rush sourdoughs supposedly had myriad meetings with big, man-like animals, or, contrarily, beast-like individuals. Today, although accounts come from as far afield as Montana, Idaho, Missouri, Illinois, West Virginia, Michigan, Nebraska and Texas, most Bigfoot sightings are in the bumpy Pacific Northwest, in alpine Northern California, Washington, Oregon and the district of British Clumbia. It was high up the Bluff Creek Valley in Northern California that a Bigfoot huntsman named Roger Patterson succeeded in capturing a few arguable feet of bleary movie film of what he averred was a feminine Bigfoot in the fall of 1967. It was a twelvemonth later in the little borough of The Dalles, Oregon, that Patterson tracked down the group of children who had spent a few darks in June, 1967 in one of the wildest animal chases on record. None of the children were over eighteen. They had been carrying automatics and staying up until all hours, and so their chase did not receive the warmest possible admirations from either their begetters or the police. As is the case of the book from which my show's title is inspired, they shall be referred to by different names. Here are the facts as they saw them: There was more than one Bigfoot. The animals left spore, of which the children took enlargements, that ranged in length from nineteen to twenty-three and a half inches. The animal's acreage were roughly eight to ten feet tall, and they guessed its weight at about 450 pounds. All told, it was quite a sight to run up on suddenly that dark Douglas Sealy and Bruce William first ascertained the earth might accommodate a big animal denominated Bigfoot. They had been out fooling around, the fashion kids sometimes get the appetite to do when it's June. They were perambulating down a flexuous avenue coming from the golf course, and up…"

In another part of the house, Heidi talked with Ken's father Rick over the phone. He was a sweet old man, had been present for many a things in his lifetime, one of the unsung heroes of entertainment, and was the subject of an urban legend that said he had beaten both Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris at the same time then died afterwards of exhaustion. Considering that Bruce Lee died in 1973 and Rick entered his second marriage in 1994 there was a serious problem with that urban legend.

"So what actually happened?" asked Heidi. "You mean you obviously didn't die and I have a feeling that the true story is more interesting than the urban legend."

"Well, to start, I didn't even get a single hit on them." Stated Rick. "Chuck has always been an incompetent idiot, an egotistical one but an incompetent idiot nonetheless, and Bruce was less of one and he quickly grew out of his incompetent idiot phase."

"How long did it take?"

"About an hour after."

"So what happened exactly?"

"Well, Heidi, Chuck leapt at me while giving the most absurd cry you had ever heard. It sounded like an elephant had stepped on his toes."

"What about Bruce?"

"He ran at me while making a noise that made him sound like Peter Sellers in slow motion."

"Who?"

"The original Inspector Clouseau."

"Okay, carry on."

"Well, I was quite an idiot myself as well. I held my ground and the next thing we knew Bruce had one of Chuck's feet in his face with me having the other foot on the side of my head, Chuck had my fist in his stomach while one of Bruce's dislocated his left knee."

"And what about you? You had one of Chuck's feet on the side of your head but what did Bruce do to you?"

"The moment Chuck's foot hit Bruce's face, it caused Bruce to fall but as he fell he tripped me and the end result was that incompetent idiot Chuck ending up on top of us."

Still, Ken continued with his web series. He'd hear of this from Heidi, having just accepted the urban legend as fact. "'Wait!' Douglas said abruptly. 'Oh good lord, what is that?' Bruce sucked in his breath, spotting it at the same instant. 'There aren't any kids around here that size,' he said. 'Let's get out of here!"


	5. Hunt for the Missing Link

**Welcome back everyone. Enjoy and review.**

 **Hunt for the Missing Link**

The fifth week came. The topic still had not moved from anything ape-like.

"'When you have eliminated the impossible,' Sherlock Holmes used to declaim to Dr. Watson, 'whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'" As Ken finished that quote he gave a smile. That was the truth. "The absurd absorbs divers animal aficionados. Ardent to concoct a plan of answering the likely actuality of such animals as Bigfoot, one group has even come up with the suggestion that they are 'pets' lost from flying saucers during terrestrial landings, or, if you prefer, laboratory animals deliberately left behind by UFO crews to determine whether extraterrestrial creatures can survive here. But scientific method demands that theories and hypotheses, no matter how intriguing, grow from evidence, and most people are left to try to fit Bigfoot and his cousins into the natural evolutionary lines that eventually gave rise to such other creatures as modern men and apes. Regrettably, however, if you want to examine the skulls and skeletons of such a prime candidate as Peking Man for linkage to Bigfoot, you run smack into a real-life mystery that would rival espionage fiction and wild adventure novels for strange twists and turns. Because Peking Man, a possible 'missing link,' is himself missing. Discovered in 1926, the fossil remains of this prehistoric man mysteriously disappeared in the turmoil that followed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The priceless bits of bones are still the object of an all-out, modern-day search. It is necessary to go back to one of the more recent developments in the search for Peking Man… It is July 27, 1972. Christopher G. Janus, a wealthy, 62-year-old Chicago stockbroker, is on a high-speed elevator, whooshing upwards in the Empire State Building…" What followed was an hour of talk about bones and some business in China.


	6. Animals of the Profound

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 **Animals of the Profound**

Week six came. This week was for once something that was not ape-like. This time the topic was monsters of the deep, or as Ken called them: animals of the profound.

"Even if Peking Man helps solve the conundrum of man-like animals, there will still be disputed inquiries about an ample change of added likely ancient predators. For example, in the celebrated heights of Scotland lies a long, strait cut of bottomless H2O. A deep loch with raised strands stand fifty feet above sea level, this body of water rests at the border of Invermoristan Forest. Blanched bleached exoskeletons litter the raised strands, antiques of prehistory when it was once an arm of the Atlantic Ocean, back before the Ice Age covered Scotland with a two-mile deep blanket of ice. When the ice defrosted, the runoff filled the loch and the land surrounding it rose, cutting it off from the deep, creating one of the most distinctive meres on Earth. The big, land-locked loch is like practically no other body of H2O known to humanity. Twenty-four miles long by one mile wide, it has no atolls. Its walls ascend straight down. Its bottom, unnaturally flat, is seven hundred feet deep, deeper even than the average depth of the North Sea. It holds an extraordinary amount of water. It also holds clues to one of the most absorbing alleged immersed animals in contemporary yesteryear, the Earth's most aired and arguable deep animal: the Loch Ness Monster, known affectionately to millions since 1933 as 'Nessie.' Loch Ness was once filled with saltwater, back when it was part of the deep, but time and nature changed all that when bourns dumped miles and miles of slit into the loch over the hundreds of years that followed the Ice Age and blocked the seaward end, making it a self-contained mere. The original seawater was gradually changed to freshwater, but the change took place so slowly that pelagic animals which had been trapped by the slit barricade had many generations to adapt themselves. 'Nessie', if she exists, is probably a seed of one of those deep animals, gradually evolving from an ocean going denizen to a more dormant land-locked freshwater burgher of the mere. She may have been around for a long time. Isolated accounts have cropped up for hundreds of years from Scots who passed through the area about 'some turr-ible monster' flailing in the mere. Then in 1933, something new happened, and the Earth sat up and began to pay closer attention to Nessie. Until that twelvemonth, the only route to the loch was an old avenue along the southern shore, built after the Jacobian Rising in 1715 in order to open up the cutoff, insurrectionary heights. The avenue ran mainly through the eminences and even when it touched the strand it did not offer much of a view, thanks to a dense blooming of trees and brier. But in the early thirties, work began on a new avenue along the north strand. The shrubbery was cleared away and the dynamite blasting began, to clear away the boulders and make room for the avenue companies. Some say the noise of the blasting woke up Nessie and brought her to the surface to see what was happening. There may have been a number of sightings in those early days of the thirties, but the first to be widely reported by the news media took place from the new avenue on April 14, 1933. The bystanders were an accommodations freeholder—"

Down in the kitchen, Rick Finlayson sat at the table beating Mort Weinerman and Cerdic Warburton at cards. How they were losing to a blind man was beyond them.

"It is a fine day when we all visit on the same day." Observed Cerdic.

"Finer for me." Stated Rick. "I haven't won a game of cards since 2008!"

Mort could only stare at Rick. He just had to ask what was on his mind. "Just how are we—"

"What is is, Mort." Replied Rick. "What is is."

"What does that even mean?" asked Cerdic.

"I can't remember." Stated Rick. "All I do remember is that it is something that Ernest Hemmingway said to me. I am in my seventies after all and I have been present for things that Ken can't even imagine."

"Then maybe you should be the host." Said Heidi as she walked into the kitchen.

"Me hosting a web-series?" asked Rick as he beat Mort and Cerdic, causing Cerdic to hang his head and Mort to bring a palm to his face. "Heidi, I can't imagine myself as the host of anything but a dinner party. Besides, web-series are for people far younger than me. No one would want to watch an old man who looks like Bogart and sounds like Grant."


	7. The Bermuda Triangle

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 **The Bermuda Triangle**

With the seventh week came something that was as far away from sea beasts as possible. People had expected something similar but this was completely unexpected.

"You're an aeronautics controller at Fort Lauderdale Naval Station." Stated Ken. "You've just come on duty in the control tower. It's an average south Florida winter day outside: capricious zephyrs, bright azures, clear daylight. There is a light chill in the air, but nothing comparable to the winters up north. You check off the flight schedules before you settle down to work. Training flights, cargo arrivals, a transport due later that afternoon with new recruits. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just routine. You pour yourself a cup of coffee, wishing you had traded shifts with someone. Christmas is only three weeks away, and you still have a lot of shipping to do. As always, you'll probably goof around and wait until the last minute to do it. Then the control-tower radio crackles to life with the first of a series of puzzling and frightening messages which blot all thoughts of Christmas from your mind. 'Hello, tower,' the radio says. 'This is Flight 19. We seem to have an emergency here. We appear to be off course. We can't see land. Repeat, we can't see land.' There is tension in the voice, but you know that the first duty of a flight controller is to remain calm. You flip quickly through your log of flight schedules, checking to see who's talking. Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor of Corpus Christi, Texas, is listed as the leader of Flight 19. It must be Taylor on the radio. Even as you're looking up this data, you have picked up the tower microphone and you're saying, 'What is your position, Flight 19?' 'We're not sure,' the voice says, 'We can't be sure where we are. We seem to be lost.' Lost? In the middle of a bright sunshiny day? You check your log again. Flight 19 is supposed to be a routine training mission. Five of the rugged little Navy TBMs… The stubby torpedo bomber known as the 'Avenger' when it was sinking Japanese battleships during World War Two. The five planes were supposed to head out over the Atlantic and zero in on a target ship anchored below Bimini in the Bahamas. Then, after they made their practice torpedo runs on the target hulk, they were to regroup and run through some navigational exercises. But now they're in trouble? That could be dangerous. Three men in each of the planes, except for Marine Lieutenant Forest Gerber's plane. His gunner took sick at the last minute and stayed behind. That meant 14 men out there, apparently lost. 'Assume a bearing due west,' you tell the planes crisply. 'You'll spot land very shortly.' 'We don't know which way west is,' the voice says. It sounds confused, edging towards frantic. 'Everything is wrong. Strange. We can't be sure of our direction. Even the ocean doesn't look right.' You sink into a chair by the radio, your stomach tied in knots. Suddenly all those old sea stories come back to you. The Hoodoo Sea. The devil's own playground. Can they be true? You swallow hard and lift the microphone. 'Listen,' you say, trying to sound confident. 'Don't panic. Hold on. Help is on the way. I'm calling for a rescue plane right now. We'll have someone out to you in a matter of minutes.' It is December 5, 1945, just four months after the end of World War Two. And…"

Down in the kitchen, there was once more a visitation. There was once more a card game going. It was once more going on between Rick, Mort and Cerdic.

As Rick shuffled the cards, he spoke about what he had encountered in his lifetime. "I've encountered it all: charms, devils, pythoness children, deities, undead but what is going on at the high school… It just sounds so… Well, high school!"

"I don't suppose you believe in ghosts." Said Mort, waiting for Rick to stop shuffling. Did it really take six minutes to shuffle?

"Actually, I do." Stated Rick. "However, an apparition visiting a high school borders on the cliché."

"Were you evil at Roswell, Rick?" asked Cerdic.

"You mean the UFO incident?" asked Rick.

"Yes."

"Lets see here, what was that? 1947? Yes, 1947. I was six years old and more interested in my Superman and Captain America comics. Of course, any intelligent person knows that it was just a weather balloon that crashed. However, my father actually did see it so those of you conspiracy theorists can stop believing it was aliens."

"Neither of us are conspiracy theorists." Stated Mort.

"Good, you are both are far too intelligent to be conspiracy theorists."" Complimented Rick.


	8. Anonymous Airborne Things

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 **Anonymous Airborne Things**

The eighth week came. Thus the subject changed to UFOs. Of course, it was what went on before the broadcast that was worth being present for.

Rick was playing solitaire in the kitchen. Why was anyone's guess! However, it was Ken's question to him that brought about the conversation worth being present for.

"Why are you here? Shouldn't you be giving a lecture on the Yeti being descended from the Neanderthal?"

"Ken, he's your dad. Be nice." Said Heidi, shocked that Ken was suddenly acting in such a way.

"I want to be here so I can hear you do your broadcast!" Stated Rick. "I thought if you'd allow it, I could give talk about my own adventures involving aliens."

"No! I don't want that!" exclaimed Ken. "And do you know why?"

"Do I want to be present for this?" asked Heidi.

"You're not a stranger, Heidi, stay." Replied Rick. "Go on, Ken."

"I want to try and get out of your shadow. I love you as a son should his father but you are a legend as a soldier, an archaeologist and what not and I don't want to be compared to you."

"Ken, you put an end to the curse on our family. You slew the Death Raptor you killed a god. You did what I was unable to do even when I was young and could see. You aren't in my shadow, you never were and there is no reason to be afraid you are going to be compared to me."

"Oh…" Ken placed a hand on the back of his neck and looked to the side. "So, do you want to talk about the time you discovered ketchup is for Venusians what Kryptonite is for Superman?"

Rick shrugged and gave a smile. "Sure, why not?"


	9. Avatars and Animals from Infinity

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 **Avatars and Animals from Infinity**

The ninth week had come and thus came a topic Ken had dreaded discussing: ancient astronauts. Only idiots believed in such things but still Ken was expected to cover this subject.

"If saucers from other worlds really have been visiting earth for the past sixty-one years, why did they wait so long before they came to look us over?" asked Ken. "The answer, if you're willing to believe a chubby pop hero from Switzerland, is that they didn't. Rather extraterrestrial beings have been using earth as a commuter stop for untold thousands of years, and the evidence is here to be seen. Erich von Daniken, a stocky Swiss writer with an impish smile, produced a book in 1969 which was to become a cult classic. His 'Chariot of the Gods', produced first in German, then in English, has gone through forty-four paperback printings and has sold more than… Uh, it has sold a lot of copies, making him and instant hero to people around the world. The success of his book has opened the field to imitators, and now it is almost impossible to go into a bookstore without seeing at least a dozen titles that suggest God was an astronaut from another star system. Von Daniken's ideas aren't new. He admits this himself, between trips to the bank. As a matter of fact, the plaudits for this theory should probably go to a Russian physicist named Argest, whose hypothesis that visitors came to our planet from a distant star and left a number of unexplained extraterrestrial monuments was published in 1961, eight years ahead of von Daniken. But even Professor Argest doesn't really deserve full credit. Imaginative science fiction writers have been playing for years with the theme that Adam and Eve were space travelers, marooned on earth when their rocket stripped its gears and parked for repairs in the Garden of Eden. Nevertheless, von Daniken popularized the theme. He took a number of literary and mythical references from our historical heritage and speculated that this planet has been visited and explored at least twice by super intelligent, non-terrestrial races. According to him, they came to earth in prehistoric times and made themselves at home, passing out gifts of wisdom and civilization which may help explain some of our more puzzling, earthbound monuments: the pyramids in Egypt, the massive carvings on the plains of Nazca in Peru, the giant stone monoliths on Easter Island, ad infinitum. On occasion, von Daniken theorizes, visitors from other worlds acted less gentlemanly, mating with earthlings, blowing up the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in an early version of the A-bomb explosion at Hiroshima, and causing the great flood which sent Noah scrambling to the nearest woodpile for the makings of the Ark. What possible basis could von Daniken have had for such an eye popping set of speculations? It might not be so far-fetched. Lets take a look at some of the 'evidence.' First, dismiss the geocentricity which allows us to think of ourselves as the only living beings in the universe. Current scientific thinking offers us a figure of something like two hundred and fifty billion star systems in our galaxy alone and the number of comparable galaxies in the infinity of the universe is a figure beyond thinking. Okay, so we have two hundred and fifty billion star systems in our own small…"

Heidi could not just help but listen. Ken sounded so bored. Walking down to the living room where Rick was reading "Land of Terror" by Edgar Rice Burroughs, translated in brail of course.

"You have something on your mind, Heidi?" asked Rick.

"You've seen, uh, sorry. Poor choice of words."

"I'm not quite that sort of blind. The most I see of you, me, anyone is a blur." Replied Rick. "But yes, I have seen many things in my lifetime."

"Do you know anything about this ancient astronaut theory?" asked Heidi.

"Well, to put it simply it is more or less a reverse of what actually happened." Stated Rick.

"Oh?"

"A bunch of uncreative space people come down, they hear the stories of gods and see their physical representations and suddenly want to be them!" Rick laughed. "That is certainly something isn't it?"

"So, how did you find out?" asked Heidi.

"Met some extraterrestrial Zeus impersonator." Replied Rick. "Zeus is for them what Elvis is for us and don't even get me started on the subject of which version is better."

"What do you mean what version? Like Harryhausen versus Disney?"

"No, you see Zeus' Egyptian counterpart is Amen-Ra and his Roman counterpart is Jupiter. You probably see where I am going with this."

"I can but Zeus? Really?" Heidi was really confused. How exactly did that happen?

"I know I would have expected Odin but never Zeus." Commented Rick. "He's more like that guy who looked like a math teacher whom sang a song that Elvis later sang."

"Who?"

"I can't remember his name. I can only remember that he looked like a math teacher."

And yet with Ken, he still continued and still sounded quite bored. "somewhat parallel manner with earth, going slightly beyond rudimentary intelligence, perhaps even developing speech and primitive civilization. That still leaves us with eight thousand planets out there, trying to grow up. Now let's take the last step. Say that only one in a thousand of these earth-type planets goes beyond simple civilization and develops a higher order capable of space flight and super intelligence. That means there are eight super planets, perhaps competing with each other for their share of dominance in the milky way, watching us in amusement the way we might watch a colony of monkeys in a local zoo. And at the same time, hoping there isn't a super-super intelligence on some neighboring galaxy that might consider them as primitive as they undoubtedly consider us. Still sound like too many super races in our own galaxy? Stop and briefly re-think the numbers. Eight billion planetary systems which scientists think are capable of producing life. That's an eight followed by a nine zeroes. We're wiping out the zeroes, all nine of them, and taking the most cautious possible estimate short of sticking to the ridiculous assumption that we are unique…"


	10. Animals of the Mind

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 **Animals of the Mind**

With the tenth week came a topic not often discussed with this sort of thing. Indeed, it was quite unusual.

"On March 25th, 1975, a jury filed back into the courtroom at Leeds Crown Court in England and delivered a verdict in a tragic murder trial, a trial filled with accounts of witchcraft, demonic possession and supernatural violence so horrifying in its intensity that court officials said it reminded them of the blackest excesses of the Middle Ages." Well, unusual might have not been the right choice of words. However given what Ken had previously covered it was in a way unusual: cryptids, the extraterrestrial, the unexplained. Now they were moving into something purely magical but it would be something the citizens of Norrisville were well familiar with, thus why not many would be watching. "The crime? Michael Taylor, a tall, thin, thirty-one year old unemployed British farm laborer of limited education, stumbled out of a Barnsley church in October, 1974, shivering and exhausted after undergoing a seven-hour, all-night exorcism ritual during which he had seen forty of his own 'personal devils' cast out by two British clergymen. Two hours later he attacked his wife at home and, convinced that she too was possessed by devils, murdered her quickly but bloodily with his bare hands. The verdict? The English jury, after hearing the bizarre testimony regarding Michael Taylor's gradual decline into the pit of demons, the subsequent rites of clerical exorcism in which he participated and the incredible act which he committed only hours later, found him not guilty by reasons of insanity. The judge ordered him sent to Broadmoor Prison for the insane. Taylor's slide into the dark netherworld of demons and Satanic possession is only one aspect of the modern wave of fascination with the occult which has swept the world in the last sixty-one years. Not many of us have flown over the plains of Nazca and wondered if we were looking down at a message to space-suited gods. Not many of us have climbed a high snowy pass in the Himalayas and shiveringly wondered, 'Yeti?' as we gazed upon mysterious tracks. But many of us have confronted monsters in our own minds. Old beliefs die hard, even in this modern age of skepticism. Today, you will find serious people involved in complex occult and psychic arenas stretching from black magic all the way to the edges of the 'white magic' of science, such as the extrasensory-perception experiment in which astronaut Edgar Mitchell attempted to communicate thought to earth from Apollo 14. Michael Taylor's path was bleak all the way, but it started innocently enough. Happily married to Christine Taylor, the twenty-nine year old 'darling of his life,' Taylor had a great deal going for him. He had five young sons, a devoted wife, loving parents, a good job on a northern English farm, But the economic crunch came along and his life began to slip away from him. It could have happened to anyone. First he lost his job. A man without work is a man without a paycheck, and with a wife and children to support, the walls begin to close in quickly. Taylor tried to find work, but there just weren't any lobs open. He fell into a state of depression, watching his wife and sons trying to make do on the little they had. Taylor turned to religion for comfort."

In the kitchen, there was once more a card game in due part to a visitation. The players were Mort, Cerdic and Rick while Heidi watched and listened to Rick speak.

"I met Gerald Lankester Harding many times, I knew him well in fact." Stated Rick. "He was a family friend and I was there with him when he excavated the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls had been found."

"That's fascinating, Rick, now will you please finish shuffling the cards?" asked Mort. Rick had been shuffling the cards for the past thirty-three minutes and both Mort and Cerdic would just wish he would finish shuffling them already.

"And when I was eight I was present for the Exorcism of Roland Doe. William S. Bowdern objected to me being there but my father insisted, stating there was a thing far worse haunting our family than what was possessing Roland."

"You mean Moloch, don't you?" asked Heidi.

"That I do." Replied Rick.

"What was he?" asked Heidi.

"Well, I have encountered Owlmen almost everywhere except for some parts of the Arctic and all of Antarctica."

"There aren't any owls in Antarctica." Commented Mort.

"Exactly!" exclaimed Rick.

"Then they must only exist where owls their smaller cousin live." Continued Mort.

"My thoughts exactly." Added Rick. "However, I have encountered the same questions ever time. Mass hysteria or is there something to be afraid of? Alien or animal? Harbinger or hallucination? Of course, the thing I've noticed most is Moloch was seven feet tall while every other Owlman I've encountered was five feet in height."

"Well, what does that mean?" asked Cerdic. "That he really was a god?"

"I don't know." Replied Rick. "If that is what you believe then let it be what you believe but I can't help but wonder if he was if his name was that of a Phoenician god whom children were sacrificed to. Still, if others have names or if he was the only one is something that can make you wonder. Are these people as we think of people or something else entirely? I know they are not mass hysteria or hallucinations but still I wonder."

But still Ken was on the subject of Taylor. "The Reverend Vincent, concerned at what he had seen, sought the advice and help of a Methodist minister in the area, Reverend Raymond Smith. Together, they decided Taylor might be demonically possessed by Satan, by some strong force of evil which would react to nothing but some prolonged rite of exorcism. On the evening of October…"


	11. Animal Bluffs

**Welcome back everyone. Enjoy and review.**

 **Animal Bluffs**

Week eleven came and this time the subject was somewhat different. It was about hoaxes.

"Nighttime in Anaheim, California is the muffled sound of television sets booming in every house on the block, a dry west wind rustling in the tops of the eucalyptus trees and the distant hum of the traffic which never ceases rushing along in the antlike frenzy on the busy Riverside Frenzy that forms the northern edge of this sprawling Los Angeles suburb." Said Ken. "But nighttime in Anaheim for one woman in a quiet residential neighborhood not long ago meant taking the dog out for a quick turn in the backyard and glancing up suddenly to see a bright, eerie light in the sky. A flying saucer! She'd read about them and heard about them. There could be no doubt: an alien space ship was hovering over Anaheim. But this one was so big. And the strange, glowing light seemed to be surrounded by smaller lights. It must be a mother ship letting off all the other ships! Leaving the bewildered dog to follow, she rushed into the kitchen and grabbed the telephone. 'What's the matter, mom?' one of the kids said, but she waved the question away impatiently and dialed with a trembling forefinger. It took four rings to get an answer, they were always so slow. But finally there was a voice on the other end. 'Operator?' the woman panted. 'Operator, this is an emergency! Get me the… the… oh, how do I know? Get me the fire department!' It was an emergency all right. At least a seventeen year old neighbor thought so when the 'huge flying saucer' was traced back to his modest hot air balloon operation and the flimsy plastic dry cleaning bag he had launched with cradle power from his own yard. 'I was trying to, well, scare people, and to see how long I could keep a balloon up,' sheepishly admitted the youngster. He spoke for a number of other California teenagers from San Diego to Los Angeles who for months had been enjoying the fad of scaring the daylights out of anyone who chanced to glance up at the night sky. Some of the kids used hot air balloons pasted together out of tissue paper, but this particular boy, successful launcher of a hundred balloons, was an expert. He usually used plastic bags such as clothes are draped in when they come from the cleaner, taping them shut at the top and attaching the bottom to a light wooden frame. Several candles stuck onto the frame provided plenty of heat to warm the air inside the bag to the point that it was lighter than the outside air. A wad of flaming paper was favored by some as a 'takeoff assist,' but even with just the candles the balloons would begin their flight within seconds, sometimes climbing a thousand feet and higher, and always casting a strange, eerie light. A simple explanation? Sure. Simpler than jumping to the conclusion that one had seen a UFO? Of course. But although hot-air balloons have been around for hundreds of years, they're not particularly common these days; and many people fell for the more complicated notion that they'd seen a saucer. Thus, the hoaxers of this world enjoyed yet another shout of merry laughter. They have been laughing for centuries, lavishly expending time, money and occasionally genius, plaguing science since science began. In fact, in the search for facts as to be the controversial existence of monsters…"

Down in the living room, Rick read a copy of "The Book of Three" translated into brail. Heidi waited by the door while Rick read.

"Sit down, Heidi." Said Rick. "It's best to be patient."

"Have you ever had to go through this with someone?"

"Oh, most of the time but I've learned to live with it."


	12. A Demand For Animals

**Welcome back everyone. Here is the finale to this story. Enjoy and review.**

 **A Demand For Animals**

The twelfth week had come. It was the final episode and thus Ken finished the series with six words.

"Or we will coin new ones." Thus did Ken finish the series but he could not finish the broadcast without speaking to the viewers directly for once. "It has been four years since I arrived in Norrisville. I came her a fool and I am now much wiser. I was a loner but now I have friends, family, the love of a beautiful wife and the pride that only a father can have. I may never completely escape monsters but when you live in a town like Norrisville why would you want to? I guess sharing my knowledge about my monsters is something I can do. This is Ken Finlayson, signing off and if there is a demand maybe I'll do a follow-up but for now, I just want to spend time with my wife and son."

 **THE END**

 **This is chronologically the last of my RC9GN stories. Ken and Heidi are happily married and they have a healthy baby son named James. This is just how I chose to end it. Rick and Mort visited of course and the reason for Cerdic visiting is because, he is Ken's half-brother-in-law. I actually confirm it here: Robert and Niall's mother Ulrica is the daughter of Rick from his previous marriage. There is some explanations. See you next time.**


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